$78 million programme to restore 270,000 hectares along Africa's Great Green Wall
A new US$78 million GEF programme, run with UNEP, aims to restore 270,000 hectares of degraded land and improve the livelihoods of 5 million people across nine Great Green Wall countries.
A new US$78 million programme aims to restore 270,000 hectares of degraded land and improve the livelihoods of 5 million people across nine countries of Africa's Great Green Wall, the UN Environment Programme announced on 6 October in Saint-Louis, Senegal. The money comes from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
Nine countries from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa
The programme covers Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. UNEP will run eight of its ten projects and coordinate the region, while the West African Development Bank runs the other two. More than half of the 5 million people it aims to reach are women.
The need is large. The Sahel is warming about 1.5 times faster than the global average, and about two-thirds of its productive land is degraded. Environmental stress, food insecurity and conflict have together contributed to the displacement of more than 4 million people in the region.
Mali and Niger get the largest restoration areas
The biggest single efforts are in Mali, where 150,000 hectares will be regenerated across the Kayes, Nioro and Ségou regions, and Niger, where 55,000 hectares of farmland, woodland and grazing land will be rehabilitated. Ethiopia will restore 22,000 hectares and bring 40,000 hectares of natural forest under better management, and wetland and forest restoration in the Gambia is meant to benefit nearly 800,000 people.
“The strength of the Great Green Wall lies in the leadership of its countries.” — Almoustapha Garba, Executive Secretary, Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall
Co-financing brings the total above $500 million
The GEF grant is matched by funding from the Green Climate Fund, IFAD, FAO and bilateral partners, bringing total resources to more than US$500 million. UNEP said the programme supports the countries' goal of bringing 30% of their degraded land under restoration by 2030.
The Great Green Wall was launched in 2007 under the African Union to fight desertification, land degradation and drought across the Sahel. The new programme adds shared monitoring so countries can compare and learn from their results.
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